1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a prompter and, in particular, to a prompter which photographs manuscripts for TV broadcasting or the like by means of a camera such as video camera or the like and displays the manuscripts or the like in front of a taking lens of a TV camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in many TV broadcasting stations, there has been used a prompter which projects and displays news manuscripts for a news caster in front of a taking lens of a TV camera.
The prompter of this type, as shown in FIG. 3, comprises a video camera 4 which is used to photograph materials 2 such as news manuscripts and the like, a television 6 of a cathode ray tube type which displays the materials in accordance with video signals from the video camera 4, and a half mirror 8 which is used to display the images that are present on the television 6.
Owing to this, a news caster 9 can perform his or her role, that is, can give a new commentary and the like while observing the materials 2 being displayed on the television 6 through the half mirror 8.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional prompter, the television 6 and the half mirror 8 are disposed in front of the taking lens 10A of the TV camera 10 by means of an arm 12 mounted to the body of the TV camera 10. Also, in the above prompter, in order that the manuscripts can be seen by the news caster 9 from a place several meters away from the manuscripts, the manuscripts must be displayed in a large way on the television 6 of a big size. Therefore, in the prompter employing such television 6, the center of gravity of the whole TV camera 10 is situated forwardly (that is, on the side of the taking lens 10A), namely, the camera is ill-balanced, which makes it difficult to operate the camera.
In order to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks, if a counter-weight is used to adjust the balance of the gravity, then the gross weight of the TV camera 10 is increased, which greatly reduces the operationability of the TV camera 10, that is, a camera panning operation, a camera tilting operation and the like are restricted to a great degree.